New Area Code - I woke up this morning to the sound of the local television news. One of the opening teasers was that the state is running out of phone numbers and will need a new area code. Somewhere before 2007, "603" will stop being the sole area code for the entire state. "Increasing use of cell phones, beepers, modems and other devices is fueling the demand for new phone numbers." In an unusual twist, the state is not sure whether to split things up geographically or to simply overlay the new code over the state. The latter means that if you add a second line to your house, it could be in a different area code. Weird!
Cutting the cord - So why do I say, "it's all our fault"? After over a year of hemming and hawing, looking at reviews, considering the costs, etc., we decided we would drop our existing land line in the house and use the proceeds towards a shared cell phone plan -- two cell phones on the same bill with shared minutes. It's been five years since I last had a cell phone. The recent phone number portability changes certainly helped. Our existing phone number will be moved to Michelle's cell phone.
We decided to go with Nextel. I've been watching the customer satisfaction ratings and they've been doing very well for the past few years. I also know that when Dad and Chris have been here with their Nextel phones, the signal strength was good. We were also strongly motivated by the "push to talk" direct connect feature. There are a lot of times when one or the other of us is out on an errand and wish we could ask a quick question. "They don't have any ..., what would you like instead?" or "I'm driving by the ... , would you like me to pick you up a ... ?" The direct connect works nation-wide, so even dad and Chris could "beep" us. It might be fun during commutes.
We decided that we didn't care about color screens or whether the phones were "Java enabled" for games and applications. We settled on the Motorola i530 models because they were compact flip phones with an emphasis on rugged durability. Michelle chose the yellow and black design and I chose the all black design. Michelle liked the two-tone because it would be easy to tell whose phone is whose and easier to find/notice it if she puts it down. "Besides," she said, "yellow is my favorite color". I don't think most people associate "hazard yellow" with femininity, but then again, some people think going anywhere with five little children in tow is a hazard to public safety.
I should pick up our phones this afternoon. The move of the home line to Michelle's phone will happen some time within the next two weeks. In the mean time she'll have a temporary number and our current phone number will still ring at home.
Shingles - I wanted to ask for prayers for our mom, Donna (aka Grandma Donna), who has been struggling with a painful case of shingles for about a month and a half. I just found out about it a couple of days ago. When I had shingles ten years ago, I had a mild case compared to what she is undergoing. Pray that she is healed soon.
Scott,
It's unlikely that two phone numbers in your house will have different area codes. Normally they section off areas and keep area codes in those specific areas. Its possible you could be 603 and your neighbor could be 123, but usually not in the same home.
My problem with switching to cell only is (aside from losing my steady paycheck, oh and I would have gone with Cingular, a member of the SBC family) signal strength is very unreliable. I don't know if it's different by you but here the answer to "can you hear me now" is usually NO!
We will say a prayer for Gramma Donna, I remember when my Dad had shingles, it was not fun. Without shingles though we would not have Kyle.
We're off to the lake now, hope you all have a great weekend.
Love,
Tom (the phoneman)
Hi Tom,
I defer to your superior phone system insight. The way they talked about it on the news, it sounded as if they went with the overlay approach (instead of geographic region splitting), everyone would keep their existing numbers. It would be newly issued numbers that would get the new area code. Most newly issued numbers are cell phones, pagers, new homes and businesses. So it wouldn't impact them since they already have to let people know what their number is. But if you decided (*after* the new area code was issued) to add a second line to your house (say, because your kids are becoming teenagers or you're starting a home office) that second line could have a different area code. But perhaps the reporter was speaking from a lack of understanding (like _that_ ever happens!) ;-P They indicated that if the overlay approach went into place, it would almost be a requirement that you always dial ten digits. Not that it would be long distance, but just to be clear.
I understand the desire to help SBC. This past year we went totally Verizon -- local AND long distance. It was to help out our local phone company AND because I was upset at the whole MCI/WorldCom fiasco last year. If I hadn't gone with Nextel wireless I would have gone with Verizon. Verizon's digital coverage doesn't go much west of my house (but then again, neither do we -- no insult intended towards the quaint town of Wilton). Since I had seen Chris and Dad's phones do well from my house, I knew the switch should work.
I'm sure there's an interesting story in there linking the shingles with Kyle ...
Have a nice time at the lake this Memorial Day weekend. We're going to visit our friends in Belmont, NH
Posted by: Scott at May 29, 2004 05:58 AM